


life is a circle, and death is more of the same

by 4n0n



Category: Bleach
Genre: M/M, NnoiTes Week 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-17 07:17:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16090733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/4n0n/pseuds/4n0n
Summary: A stranger takes up wandering around the outer districts.





	life is a circle, and death is more of the same

“Now, lemme ask ya again.” The man drawls.

 

Everyone in the bar tries, uselessly but determined by terror, to draw further away from him. He's thin enough to be mistaken for emaciated. He jerks the first idiot who did around by his neck. Tall enough to brush shack's ceiling he surveys his cowering audience. 

 

“I'm looking for a dude.” At least, he thinks it's a dude. 

 

No one says anything. Tall, lean and mean seems to be genuinely disappointed by the room's lack of response. He tries again.

 

“He's kind of weird,” He reveals optimistically spreading his arms. About the weird part, he's strangely certain. He still hasn't let go of the guy who was dumb enough to attack him. All of sudden, he drops the guy to rub at his eye.

"Fuckin' bitch, stop itching." He vigorously rub at his eye until the skin is red. When he looks up the make-shift bar is empty.

 

“Well, that is just disappointing.” 

 

–

 

The stranger takes up travelling. Fighting any challengers, along the way he acquires a huge halberd. A tell-tale sign to recognize him by along with the eye-rubbing. 

 

Most shinigami spend their lives without ever encountering an Adjuchas. The citizens inhabiting the last dregs of the outer districts, though. They don't know 'Adjuchas'. They know the Big Hungry.

 

The cry echoes over the shabby huts and tents. Everyone flees. The Big Hungry can freeze them to the ground, getting to close is a death sentence in and of itself. The stranger walks through the throng of people unperturbed. No one runs into him, even with their attention on the monster, the slum rats know how to run without getting themselves killed in the process.

 

Some unlucky bastard(s) always gets stuck. Petrified they lie around the Big Hungy.

 

The stranger reaches the Hungry, his smile has grown wide and pleased. 

 

“Hey!”

 

The Big Hungry opens its mouth and screams, the man screams right back. He slaughters it, brutally and methodically. Like a shinigami should but at the same time nothing like a shinigami. 

 

 

After that, he becomes a welcome if not overly well liked sight. He fights the Big Hungry for the fun of it. The first time, someone thanks him, a child, newly arrived, my her naivety not cost her life. He stares down at the little girl, barely reaching his knee. The stranger stares down at her. Unexpectedly, he starts cackling, it sounds like a hyena on the edge of hystery. People conclude that he prefers his compensation to be more solid. So they take up giving him food. He decides, he likes food and hunger. It's a distraction from the itch. 

 

It's only a matter of time before the Shinigami come. On a dusty road seaming with forlorn huts, they approach him.

 

“You're quite the strong guy.”

 

The tall man pauses. The denizens of the slum observe them warily. Only the most naïve or very noble think that just because the Shinigami are tasked with their protection, they will play nice.

 

“Thanks, I know,” The man drawls. He's seizing them up. Not subtly, the shinigami are just to arrogant to recognize it. 

 

The shinigami falters for a moment, ingrained elitism wins over instinct eventually.

 

“You have the great honor of being given a place in Shin'ō Academy.“

 

With grandeur, he produces a sealed scroll. The paper costs more than a life around these parts. That's how it always goes, the strong are taken away to the nicer districts, strength is needed to defend the nice parts of Rukongai. Lest a noble hear a Hungry so much as scream.

The man opens his mouth. A hundred eyes watch in tepid fascination, an insult to the shinigami could end this neighborhood better than any Hungry. Behind the shinigami, an old man shakes his head desperately waving a large piece of meat of uncertain origin. 

 

Whatever the man was planning to say, on the tip of his tongue it changes to, 'not interested'.

 

The shinigami don't like that.

 

“How dare –!” Red-faced, “A lowly thug--!”

 

At least, one of them is a seated officer, the huts tremble under his spiritual force.

 

The man does the Thing. He learnt early on that most people couldn't really breathe around him. He had to restrain himself if he wanted them to speak and do stuff for him. Now, he unleashes his reiatsu. It topples the shinigami like a tidal wave.

 

“Don't act tough with me.” The man looms above the shinigami, looming is one of the best things about his size, he loves looming. It totally makes up for constantly ramming his head into low hanging beams. With his ghastly grin illuminated by the sun, he looks more like a Hungry One. Then the itch in his eye grows intolerable and the consecutive rubbing and cursing ruins the illusion.

 

The shinigami don't come again.

 

–

 

Years in Rukongai pass fast, the slums are their own special grind, they wear people to the ground. No one lives here long, they either leave for Sereitei or they just disappear. Soon no one remembers a time when the tall man wasn't around.

 

He keeps looking until he forgets what he's looking for. He continues his journey through the outer districts making neither rhyme nor reason of it. The itch remains unchanging.

 

–

 

Sometimes, many Big Hungry come.

 

Those are good days for the man. Hiss weird laughter carries a happy note even when the Big Hungry surround him. His scythe breaks on the teeth of a thing that looks like a mutated dog, if dogs grew to be three stores high. He punches it with his bare hand. The Hungry Ones are many, they come at him, from all sides. He kills them all. Death is welcome to him.

 

He's barely breathing when the slum rats find him beneath all the carnage. They drag him to the shinigami.

-

 

He wakes up and there's a prim and proper one beside him. He doesn't need a nurse maid. No thank you. He struggles to tell the shinigami as much. He's a pretty little fucker, all soft looks and big brown eye that broads just love to gush about. Fuck, even the scar is tastefully pretty, a slight imperfection on an otherwise flawless face. His fucking eye itches so badly. He's bandaged from the neck down and this is still the worst thing. And the fuckhead is just sitting there, staring like an A-grade creep.

 

“Is your eye bothering you?” He inquires politely. _No shit._

 

Something is off with that guy, he thinks as he notices that they're all alone in the room.

 

The man goes over all the possible reasons for staring, the sitting with a stranger in a locked room all alone.

 

“Did I kill your father?” He tries. 

 

“No.”

 

“Mother?”

 

“No.”

 

The man smiles through the pain of pulling the stitches on his face.

 

“Girlfriend?”

 

“No,” The man frowns disappointing, he loves pointing out the futility of love.

 

“Boyfriend, then?” He asks almost hopefully.

 

There's no outward reaction. But he knows he struck a chord, there.

 

“Aww, have you come to avenge you darling hubby?” He mocks.

 

The shinigami draws back. His reiatsu is humming furiously. A promise of violent brutality. Faster than he can react the shinigami has plucked his itchy eye. The sudden absence of the ever-present itch is jarring, excruciating in its suddenness. His eye waters and he curls in on himself.

 

He knew the guy was a fucking freak. Just look at him, those scars don't come from a fight.

 

What. The. Actual. Fuck?!! But also goodbye fucking itch, you won't be missed. How did this solution, so simple and brutal never occur to him. It is his style.

 

Meanwhile the shinigami seems to have lost his equilibrum. His lower lip wobbles, and is that a fucking tear? He presses the eye to his own empty socket.

 

“Now, we match.” The shinigami states serenely. “Something to always remember me by.”

 

The room tilts with the strangest fucking sense of deja-vu.

 

“Are you an idiot?” Yes, he is an idiot, a fool lying on the sand and crying like little bitch. Following him around, traipsing after him, saying he gets him, acting all familiar, so how about this? Let's be real similar.

 

The man's unbroken arm shoots forward and rips the eye out of the shinigami's hand. He has chewed and swallowed before he can contemplate the action.

 

_Oh._

 

The present mirrors the present. Only it's his own eye. Because Tesla's is already missing, he opens his mouth to ask about that. But then he looks closer at those jagged lines surrounding the deep gouge and he decides that, this is a question for another time.

 

Nnoitra observes Tesla talking to another shinigami,a blonde waifish guy, beneath the shade of a large persimmon tree. The vice-captain, he's got that badge, grips Tesla's arm and whispers something into his ear. Nnoitra grits his teeth, first the idiot begs to come with him, now he's wasting time. He stomps off. Maybe that spikey-haired fucker is still around, they got unfinished business.

 

Tesla catches up to him before he reaches the gates, falling into step behind him. He's lost the uniform, instead he's wearing soft greyish colors. 

 

"There are reports of incursions in Zaraki." He state non-committedly. The name rings a bell. Nnoitra turns his head to look back at Tesla who has the good grace to wipe the tiny smile off his face immediately.

 

"That's where Captain Zaraki is from, you might remember him." Nnoitra has only met one shinigami captain. He can feel a grin tugging on the corners of his mouth. Things are looking up.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> i was tempted to call nnoitra slenderman, very tempted. i'm not really happy with this but it's not getting any better. 
> 
> let me know what you think
> 
> Edit: some things but nothing life changing


End file.
